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Health education researcher wins national award

Professor Phil Morgan from the Faculty of Education and Arts has scooped a prestigious 2012 Scopus Young Researcher of the Year Award.

Professor Morgan is the first University of Newcastle researcher to be honoured with a Scopus Award, winning the Humanities and Social Science category for his acclaimed work in health education by using innovative education programs to tackle Australia’s obesity epidemic. 

Professor Morgan has developed and tested a host of ‘targeted’ education programs to promote healthy lifestyles in different settings and populations. For example, his programs for men include the Healthy Dads, Healthy Kids (HDHK) program, which targets overweight fathers and their children; the Workplace POWER (Preventing Obesity Without Eating like a Rabbit) program targeting overweight shift workers; and the SHED-IT (Self-Help, Exercise and Diet Using Information Technology) weight loss program for men.

“Early in my research career, I realised the importance of ‘targeting’ and ‘tailoring’ programs to specific sub-groups of the population,” Professor Morgan said.